


every new touch

by openhearts



Category: Make It or Break It
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21989281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openhearts/pseuds/openhearts
Summary: On the screen Payson finishes her routine in her final pose, holding it for a few moments until she pops up and looks toward the camera, but not into it. She looks just to the left, where Sasha was standing. She’s smiling, looking a little winded, but exhilarated, expectant. Sasha’s voice comes through the speakers a second before the video cuts off. “Beautiful,” he says again.Set around the time of If Only and At The Edge of Worlds.
Relationships: Sasha Belov/Payson Keeler
Kudos: 21





	every new touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amathela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amathela/gifts).



> I just found this in my drive. Originally posted on LiveJournal for an advent calendar fic meme from . . . an unknown number of years ago. Amathela prompted me with Payson/Sasha, "trailer" (and wrote st least one truly delightful fic herself; search her out or check my bookmarks)
> 
> . . . You know those ships that never get old and you can read fic for them years later and it's just like when Sasha literally took Payson on a freaking date to the ballet and her parents bought them a honeymoon gym and everybody was somehow surprised when she kissed him and he basically was like yeah I get it kiddo let's just keep being transcendently purely in love anyway, IN CANON all over again??
> 
> MIOBI was wild, guys.

The new gym is only new in some ways; it’s older and smaller than the Rock, without even a tv in the office for viewing the tapes of Payson’s practices.

They end up watching the tapes in the trailer most days, which when parked takes up most of the tiny lot behind the building. 

They step inside one afternoon and Payson settles on the narrow bench at the stretch of counter that serves as his kitchen table. Sasha cues up the video and sits next to her. They watch, Sasha with rapt attention, and Payson fidgeting nervously. She’s restless suddenly, her mind jumpy and unfocused.

“Look at the extension in your legs on that jete. Beautiful.”

She huffs through her nose and when she finally glances over Sasha’s just looking at her.

“What?”

He shakes his head slightly and looks back to the tv. On the screen Payson finishes her routine in her final pose, holding it for a few moments until she pops up and looks toward the camera, but not into it. She looks just to the left, where Sasha was standing. She’s smiling, looking a little winded, but exhilarated, expectant. Sasha’s voice comes through the speakers a second before the video cuts off. “Beautiful,” he says again.

Payson sits still, her hands limp in her lap. She stares forward without really seeing anything. His voice from the tape seems to echo in her mind, overlapping and repeating itself until it grows into an indecipherable din and she feels a blush creeping up over her cheeks. She can’t make herself turn and look at him again; she’s frozen and crawling with heat at the same time.

“Payson?” he says softly. She feels his breath over her hair, the side of her face.

Then he touches her, just the tips of his fingers on her jaw guiding her to turn her head toward him. Panic grips her, an immediate startling thrill at the closeness, and then before she can wrap her head around it he’s stroking her hair back and letting his fingers trail back down her temple and over her cheek.

“You don’t know, you’re so-” he cuts himself off, and pulls his hand away. He closes it into a fist in midair and turns to face forward again, wedges his palms against the edge of the seat on either side of his thighs.

She feels like she’s fainting. Black spots collect in her peripheral vision and she feels numb all over except for the tingling trail his touch left. The sensations fade and she realizes he’s still sitting next to her. She wraps her fingers around his forearm and feels the muscles tighten under his skin.

“Payson, I can’t-”

“Look at me,” she interrupts. 

He closes his eyes.

She takes a deep breath and reaches up to run her own fingers over his temple and back through his hair. She trails her nails over his scalp. He trembles and lets out a breath, but he won’t look at her. She tugs on his arm and he screws his eyes shut and grimaces a little, but he turns his head and suddenly his hand is on the back of her neck and his mouth is pressed to hers. It’s clumsy and too much pressure at first, but after a second Payson tilts her head and opens her lips slightly under his. He lets out a sound from the back of his throat, something almost anguished, and pulls his hand away. Strands of her hair cling to his fingers.

Just as quickly as he begins to slide backward Payson is up on her knees on the bench next to him, bracing her hands on his shoulders and leaning in closer and further, not letting him break contact. He reaches up and grabs her upper arms, wrenches her away from him and releases her immediately. He slumps in the corner of the bench with his hands hanging in the air between them. He takes a few shaking breaths in and out before he speaks. 

“We absolutely cannot do this.”

“What are you scared of?”

She shakes her head and moves toward him again but he deflects her, turning her to sit and lean against his chest. He wraps one arm around her, his forearm resting over her collarbone. He leans his cheek on the top of her head.

“You told me the relationship between a coach and a gymnast is intense, and intimate-”

“I didn’t mean this kind of intimacy.”

He sighs and reaches up with his other hand to run his fingers back through his hair.

She trails her nails from his elbow to his knuckles and wiggles his fingers loose to twine hers between them.

“But there’s . . . there’s something, isn’t there? Spark, or electricity, or whatever people say. It felt like there was.”

“That’s beside the point, it’s-”

“So you’re not denying it.”

She pivots swiftly and straddles his lap, reaches up and cups his cheeks in her hands. “You’re everything to me,” she says softly. “I just want to show you that.”

“I know-”

“No. No, you said yourself you would have kissed your coach if he’d been a woman. But he wasn’t. You don’t really understand what it’s like for me.”

“Payson if I gave you the wrong impression, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry!” she bursts out. “Don’t tell me that, and don’t tell me you’re leaving, or that I have to start over again. Don’t- don’t pull away, I can’t get left behind again, I can’t-”

He cuts her off. He pulls her to him and wraps his arms around her, hushing her softly. Her arms wind around his shoulders and she buries her face against his neck. He holds her for a moment, whispering reassurances into her ear, before he presses a chaste kiss to her hair. He pushes her back gently, holds her face in his hands, and kisses her forehead firmly.

“I’m here, Payson. I’m not going anywhere. Do you believe me?”

She swallows and stares at him a moment, eyes roaming over his face. She reaches up and touches him, sliding her fingertips lightly over his forehead, down his jaw and to his throat until her hand rests flat, high on his chest. 

She leans in, slowly, testing. 

He holds still, though his breathing quickens. His eyes stay open as hers flutter shut a second before her parted lips just barely touch his. Her hand slides around to the back of his neck, and she scoots herself closer in his lap.

She coaxes his mouth open with hers and slides her tongue against his too quickly, but he pulls back slightly and takes his time tracing her upper lip with the very tip of his tongue until her small hands are fisted tight in his shirt. She uses her grip to pull him closer, make him wrap his arms around her and slide his hands up from her hips over the curve of her waist until he’s grasping at her shoulders, dragging her deeper of his own accord.

He means to break the kiss after a moment, to let her feel the reassurance she’s asking for in the easiest way she has to understand it – physically. He means to bend rules, not break them, and to find a way to be everything she needs while still filling the shoes of an athletic mentor. 

Instead he stands, hoisting her up with her legs wrapped around his hips, and walks the few steps to his bed. He lays her down, and crawls up to settle next to her. 

“Tell me if you’re afraid,” he says quietly. 

She shakes her head and he knows she’s at least half lying. He brushes his palm back over her hair and watches her watch him for a moment.

“I just want you close to me,” she whispers as she reaches up for him, wraps her arms around his back and pulls him down to her. She hooks a calf over his and nestles in beneath him, lets his heat suffuse her. 

He trails a hand up from her knee and over her hip and his fingertips graze beneath the waistband of her pants in the midst of his slow lazy circling. She sucks in a breath and his touch disappears, his hand suddenly resting flat on the bed next to her.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, Pay.”

“I’m not afraid of you. You would never – you’d never hurt me.”

“I’m not perfect, darling. I’m not some godlike man who never does anything wrong.”

“But you love me,” she says, like it’s the simplest answer, like it solves everything.

“Yes,” he says softly. He leans down and trails his lips over her cheek. “And that by itself means I’m not a very good man.”

He punctuates this with an unsubtle bite to a soft spot low behind her ear and she coils up like a spring beneath him, the leg drawn over his clenching and nudging him in closer.

Payson turns his face back to hers and kisses him, all clear bright desire blinding her behind her eyes. She slides her legs open and he shifts and settles his hips against her. A quick, satisfied groan slides from her mouth to his even as she stiffens and pauses beneath him. He runs a hand over her arm, down her side, and moves his hips slowly, gently, to let her test the feeling out for a moment. Her breath hitches and she breaks the kiss, leaning up to touch her forehead to the base of his throat.

There’s no sound in the trailer but their breathing, syncopated and uneven, fabric brushing against fabric, mouths meeting and parting.

They continue slowly; every movement, every new touch, feels momentous and irreversible, like they’re marking each others’ skin with permanent ink.

Sasha works one of his hands slowly over Payson’s shoulder, skates a fingertip over her collarbone, and then he’s cupping her breast gently and she’s gasping with a sound not frightened or impassioned, but surprised. He pulls away and watches her face as he keeps moving his hand deliberately, slightly squeezing and toying with her. A deep blush already saturates her cheeks, but she holds his gaze for a few seconds before pulling him back in to kiss her again.

Emboldened, Payson pushes Sasha’s shirt up and he lifts his arms to pull it over his head and toss it aside, and then he’s kneeling on the bed with her legs splayed on either side of his and he pauses. She takes him in, the soft cuts of his muscles, his messy hair and dark eyes. She sits up and runs her fingertips down his arms as she rests her chin against his stomach and looks up at him through her eyelashes.

Slowly, he leans down until he can brace his hands on the bed, Payson leaning back with him until she’s flat on her back with him on top of her. He brushes the tip of his nose against hers, and then he kisses her, deep and open and unyielding.

When he pulls away next it’s to open a drawer and pull out a condom and that’s when Payson actually realizes what’s going to happen. It’s real, and practical of him, because unlike the other girls she’s actually started puberty now and even her return to training after her injury hasn’t gotten her back in the shape she’d been in before. A woman’s body was laying itself over the athlete’s form and now, lying stretched across the unmade bed in Sasha’s trailer, she feels fully present within her body.

He crawls back over her, kisses her stomach and her arms and her neck and her face. He keeps dotting her skin with his mouth, insistent and barely there at the same time.

She realizes after a few moments that he’s waiting for her, for a sign that she wants what comes next. For a few seconds she’s frozen, wondering one thing; if this will be the end or the beginning.

Sasha pauses beside her ear and whispers “You know I love you?”

She nods.


End file.
